When British journalist Don Idon joins the SS America His first act in 1954 was to find a copy of the boat’s first class passenger list. His heart sank as he read it – and sure enough, Harry Truman’s daughter, Margaret Truman, was in attendance, as were some prominent businessmen. But that list, as he later wrote and Stephen Ujifusa details in his book, A Fascinating Journey: American Tourists in France From Jefferson to the Jazz Age, there was a distinct lack of “big names”. Where were the movie stars?
As steamship travel increased in the 1919s,th From this century to the 20th centuryth Centuries ago, the passenger list was a central feature on long voyages, providing a rare preview of the people who would be among the passengers throughout the journey. Historian Lorraine Koons, who has written a book about steamship travel, told me that in her research she first realized that steamboats appeared around the 1880s. These lists, often color-coded by cabin class, were handed out to new arrivals, who always looked up the names of famous people. It didn’t matter whether your reputation was positive or unfavorable. A high profile person will be good entertainment during the voyage. Journalists also obtained copies. As the ship departed from the port city, local reporters published articles listing all of the most famous names on board.
What makes these lists so unique is the complete transparency they offer. Royalty, politicians, and A-list celebrities were named alongside ordinary middle-class passengers, an unusual mix of social classes that one writer lamented in 1910. ” But that accessibility was also the beauty of the passenger list. There were no loopholes for the wealthiest travelers. If you wanted to go on a boat, you had to be on the passenger list.
Today we can no longer really compare. The mysterious initialized upgrade monitor in the terminal gate doesn’t quite scratch the same itch. Travelers on a plane end up shuffling their way through first class, trying to sneak a glimpse of a celebrity’s face. Even that is becoming increasingly difficult, with celebrities taking advantage of VIP programs to get on and off planes and sheltering in full-scale private suites and terminals before boarding the plane. For the truly brave, one way to track celebrities’ travel movements is by leveraging publicly available private jet flight data. And the likes of Taylor Swift and Elon Musk are trying to stop that.
While we’re unlikely to return to the officially sanctioned nosy state of the steamship era, in today’s hyper-stratified world where the wealthiest can pay for the privilege of privacy, perhaps we can use a bit of that social transparency. would be available. These old passenger lists helped break down travel’s class structure, at least temporarily, by giving all passengers equal access to gossip. A little intrigue about your fellow passengers never hurts. And maybe getting a list of names will make today’s international flights a little more bearable. A little guessing about the other talented travelers on board may help ease tensions in the highlands, which have historically been a pressure cooker of resentment.
Given the weeks of steamship voyages, it was perhaps inevitable that passenger lists would be the subject of careful scrutiny. in early 20’sth So far into the century, the lure of international voyages has captivated travelers. Once the passengers left shore, one of their big challenges was to prevent boredom. Some ships also held lectures. Some even designed musical bands from sailors.of Ile de France There was a bowling alley. Passengers often gathered on their own for activities not provided by the ship. Steamship travelers organized theatrical programs, boxing tournaments, or large balls. At night, dance music was played from a gramophone.
And gossip became a commodity. Many passengers decided to self-publish steamship newspapers covering the passengers’ personal histories. Some shipping newspapers published blind articles about the passengers. Historian Martin Lyons discovered that in the margins of one surviving volume of the Tamar Times, readers had written dangerous guesses about which traveler each blind entry referred to. Analysis of passenger lists was also often published in these newspapers. On one ship, a passenger publishes a single-issue newspaper called “The Roly-Poly,” which includes an analysis of all the passengers on the list, and “Which of the women are married to All but 78 people who want to be wives are wives.” Even elites referenced these lists to adjust their social interactions to avoid accidentally getting caught up in conversations with vulgar people.
The potential focus on lower-level passenger lists speaks to how boring these journeys were. The passenger list was not a Wikipedia entry. They were barebones documents and generally only listed names. Mr. Koons told me that some steamship operators also listed the travelers’ residences, but most were strictly by name. Passengers were forced to piece together their vague memories to weave together (possibly dramatized) backstories of the celebrities on board.
Despite these limitations, observers have found ways to spy on the rich and famous. Names preceded by a title such as “Baroness” indicate someone important, as does the size of each passenger’s entourage. It’s not unusual to see the names of wealthy people listed alongside “two nurses and a tutor.” For example, one passenger list mentioned the presence of “JK Smith and an attendant.” William Thomas Corlett, a professor of medicine, said he was disappointed in the quality of the passengers on his ships, that is, until he looked at the list. Only then did he happily notice the presence of “this and that”, “along with several barons and one or two baronesses”.
Not all steamship companies liked the passenger list. Some have devised ways to keep steamships as exclusive as possible so that passenger details are not shared with the public. SS carolinaFor example, it did not allow passengers to book partial trips for fear that an influx of middle-class customers would lead to leakage of passenger lists. Basically you had to pay for the entire trip or you couldn’t get on the ride.
However, passenger lists that are actually made available to the public have become extremely important in recent decades. Genealogists and historians alike rely on passenger lists to track how people moved around the world. Amateur genealogists at Ancestry.com regularly use passenger lists to trace their roots. So does our most famous family history chronicler, Henry Louis Gates Jr. In retrospect, these documents also illustrated social change. It was not uncommon for immigrants to fill in new names when boarding steamers, or for trans passengers to adopt their preferred names. sex. I thought a lot about the passenger list when I was researching Kobek, the famous Czech athlete Zdeněk, who had a sex change in 1935, for a forthcoming history book. other olympic athletes. In 1936, when Corbeck was newly living as a man, he visited New York and was listed on the passenger list with his new gender, “Mr.”
I accept that in our world of technological surveillance, passenger lists may no longer be relevant. There, even a simple set of names is collected by an algorithm. But without them, I think we’ve lost a certain sense of camaraderie. I lost the thrill of unpacking my manifesto and wondering what I would find. These lists have sometimes impressed me, sometimes disappointed me, but always entertained me. In 1901, wealthy Mary Lawrence from Boston looked over her first class passenger list on a steamship. oceanic. She was excited to see the name of Oto Cushing, an illustrator and cartoonist whose work she knew. According to the same book, she wrote in her diary, “At last, an interesting traveler came here.” fascinating journey.
But almost a decade later, when she boarded the same steamer again, the list was less colorful. Lawrence was devastated. “There was not a single person on the passenger list that I had never heard of before,” she complained. Today, Lawrence’s confidence that the list is a complete description of the passengers is astonishing. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to her that there could be a loophole for those who could pay her, and that if she was famous enough, she could have her name removed from the manifesto.And perhaps those loopholes are really did not do it exist. Yes, steamships had rated cabins, but there was no special treatment for celebrities. At sea everyone was on a boat. list.
